“There’s better”: The Nirvana song Dave Grohl considered overrated
In the world of rock music, it’s impossible to have total control over which one of your songs gets popular. Most artists might have a say in what they want out as a single, but there’s no telling whether the tune that ends up gaining traction is actually your best work or something that will just be forgotten in a year’s time. And even when Nirvana started making music that turned the entire genre on its head, Dave Grohl knew that he wasn’t nearly as thrilled with one of their hits as everyone else was.
By the time that Grohl joined, though, Nirvana wasn’t looking to be one of the biggest bands in the world. They had already come off a decently successful debut with Bleach, but even with the rest of the world following them onto Nevermind, all they wanted to do was make a record that could stand apart from the millions of hair metal wannabes on the radio.
And as much as Kurt Cobain should get credit for his fantastic songwriting, Dave Grohl may deserve a handful of writing credits for what he brought to the table. While it’s easy to call what he did more arranging than outright songwriting, his performances on ‘Come As You Are’ and the massive drum roll that kicks off ‘Stay Away’ are almost as important as any of the guitar licks that Cobain played.
When they were first cutting songs, though, Grohl had to do a lot of homework on how some of the original tunes went. Tracks like ‘Lithium’ and ‘In Bloom’ had already been recorded in a previous session, and when listening to the drum tracks, Grohl is still just copying them note-for-note from what Chad Channing did a few months before.
But out of all the tunes that ended up on the record, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was one of the few new ones that Cobain had lying around. And the minute that Grohl came storming in with that iconic opening drum fill, that had the lightning in a bottle that very few bands can capture in three minutes.
At the same time, Grohl never understood what everyone else saw in the tune years after it was released, saying, “‘Teen Spirit’ definitely established that quiet, loud dynamic thing that we fell back on a lot of the time. It did become that one song that personifies the band. But do I think it’s the greatest single of all time? Of course not! I don t even think it’s the greatest Nirvana single. And compared to ‘Revolution’ by The Beatles or ‘God Only Knows’ by The Beach Boys?! Give me a break! ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was a great moment in time… but there’s better.”
But it’s more than a moment in time for most people, isn’t it? Outside of being the clarion call for the alternative movement, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is the kind of cry of anger that anyone can relate to. Even if no one could understand what Cobain was singing about, they knew enough to see that he believed every word that he was singing.
For the rest of the rock community, this was the moment when many people got over the nonstop party music and started to take their craft much more seriously. Because all great rock and roll comes from the heart, and if a couple of kids tearing a gymnasium apart could become superstars, why not you, too?
